A Kiss To Forget
by Tall Tails - Feline Jaye
Summary: My take on the Moira/Charles kiss at the end. Set in First Class.


Refreshed my memory of the movie (actually wrote and watched at the same time) so this version should be better.

Of course, spoilers for basically all of First Class.

Just my take on the lead up and the kiss itself between Moira and Charles at the end.

* * *

><p>The pub said it all, really. You couldn't get a clearer picture than that, could you? She met him in a <strong>pub<strong>. The university's local pub. How more obvious could it be what he was like? He had come back from wowing impressive individual's with a lecture - **him** delivering a lecture, so young and lecturing these older men like, like-

Well, like he had first hand evidence what he was saying was true.

Which was what Moria was counting on, wasn't it?

Her hopes almost completely failed her when she walked into the impromptue party and spotted the man she was looking for. Spotted him in the middle of downing a complete yard of ale. Even if that vision hadn't shattered her hopes that he actually had real intelligence in his head, his slurred shout afterwards certainly narrowed her chances of having a lucid conversation with him.

But she had tried anyway.

To do so, she had to intercept his smug walk towards some some co-ed girl and her impression of him was created. She had to admit, she was banking a bit on playing the 'pretty girl' card if she needed to, but it still gave her quite the picture of what Charles Xavier was like. No sooner had they swapped names than he had touched her hair and began flirting with her. In fact, he'd probably been flirting beforehand too.

She was a proffessional and a proffessional woman at that which was sadly enough a factor that people cared too much about. She was used to men flirting with her while on the job - mostly to undermine her. She was unimpressed by this **boy's** attempts. What she was impressed by, however, was the way the drunkeness practically melted away as he raised on hand to the side of his head and looked into her.

"Something tells me you already know the answer to your question."

She was unimpressed by his cocky, debonaire attitude and his flirtatious personality. But she was impressed that he knew what he was talking about when it came to genetics. She was impressed that he would so sincerly give his all to some whom he knew nothing about aside from her name and MCR1 gene.

* * *

><p>Her heart skipped a beat when he dived off the edge of the boat. The idea that anyone could be so self-sacrificing as to just <strong>fling<strong> themselves into a freezing cold ocean for a complete **stranger** was almost incomprehensible. But his selfless nature - which had come as a shock but was only reinforced as time went on - was obviously such a part of Charles that not having it would've been incomprehensible to him.

Which made his friendship with that very same drowning stranger all the more odd.

He had thrown himself into finding other mutants so completely. When they finally had a handful, he'd believed in them so fully. He'd known each of them for a few days and they where still so young. But he believed nonetheless.

Erik - wildcard Erik whom she'd never really trusted - ran off to practically start WWIII and again Charles was nothing but compassion. They weren't at sea this time so the boat he threw himself off was only metaphorical now. But he still did it. She'd been so angry at the time. She expects the damaged man to run off but Oxford Charles should know to follow orders. But whenever she thought back on it she couldn't conjure any feeling but respect and admiration.

When Shaw had found them afterwards, he'd been so completely shattered to loose two of the young mutants. She doesn't think anyone was meant to, but she felt his anguish being broadcast from his mind. They didn't just loose someone to Shaw - they lost someone to death.

It should probably have been a sign, that Moria entertained the notion that Charles wasn't just broadcasting his pain, but was specifically broadcasting it to **her**. As if he wanted her to help. Thinking that idea should've been a sign.

But it was long after that; after long days of watching the mutants train. Of watching Charles try and try and come up with new and more fantastical ways of helping the younger ones gain control. Of watching him **care** so damn much. It was after months of that that Moria realised - or maybe just finally admitted to herself - that she was in love with him.

* * *

><p>Some part of her mind wonders if what she felt was natural empathy or... well, or if it was empathy induced by his mutation. She feels horrible about thinking that particular thought later and vows not to think about it again. Of course 'later' it becomes much easier to just say that she 'forgot'. Nonetheless empathy jolts through her as Charles' back archs away from her, empathy created from knowing that it's <strong>her<strong> bullet that just dug into his spine.

When Erik (and maybe she has a bit of a precognition mutation herself because the name then just feels **wrong**) pulls up her dogtags and begins to choke her she feels like she deserves it. Charles could die because of her. She **knew** that bullets - stupid **metal** bullets - couldn't hurt Erik one bit. But they could hurt anyone else around them. Her, the kids, **Charles**. She feels like a first class idiot.

But she doesn't die and she's relieved and then guility that she's relieved then just an unhappy mix of the two then Erik lets her come forward and she's just sorrow in human form. The next moments blur past her in a reel that's far too tense. Then, somehow, they're home.

Home.

She wonders when she started thinking of Xavier Manor as home. But with one look at the man in Hanks arms, her heart tells her it's because he's there.

* * *

><p>Moira stays with us for a few days. She's a great help in calming Alex and Sean and Hank. The only three left. She's even better help at assiting Hank and myself in purchasing the materials and building a- a wheelchair. A wheelchair for me. For me and my paralysed spine.<p>

But she can't stay. For everyone's sake she can't say. It pains me to even think it, but far less so than I know it would've a fortnight ago, but she can't stay because she's **human**.

It's a little more than that and I comfort myself with that reasoning. She's the only one in my home (which feels so much like a house now that my closest two have left) that has a life outside of here. She has a job and she has to return to it. She's loyal to her government, which is a respectable moral standpoint. But that loyalty could easily compromise our own saftey.

The saftey of mutants.

So I ask her to walk with me. She flinches internally at her automatic thought - my wheelchair was been finished just the day before and her mind twists my "Walk with me." into "Please walk me." I'm not sure whether I'm pleased or not at her immediate regret as classifying me as some helpless invalid.

So we walk - she walks, I let her push me along - and I think of how I can fix this. I know I can do it. I can reach right into her mind and take everything she remembers. I could take as much of her memories as I liked. Except I can't. Because she knows what my mutation feels like by now and the strong proffesional woman is bound to try and fight me off and if she struggles then I might have to admit that stealling her memories is like just stealing her **life**.

I relax the walls on my mutation and let her surface thoughts float over mine. Her thoughts give me an idea. As she walks she imagines this a peaceful stroll and she looks at the trees and the angle of the sun and she thinks about how romantic this all is. While sweet, I can't help my stomach churn at the sentiment. As if this could all be so romantic when just days before I lost **Raven** and I lost **Erik** and I couldn't do **anything** about it.

But nonetheless her thoughts give me an idea. I softly let a concept sit on top her own thoughts. The idea that I really did invite her out for a romantic little interlude, that maybe there's something more than business and friendship between the two of us. I can feel the concept seep into her thoughts, intergrate and become accepted as one of her own. I can't help but compare the sure knowledge that Erik would never have been so susceptible to telepathic suggestion as that. Stubborn Erik would have needed far more persuasion.

I fall back into my seductive persona so quickly that I reel at the thought of how long ago I actually did this to a girl. Not **this**, per se, just the seduction part. Dressing up dry words - it doesn't matter that it's not mutations and genes I'm talking about now. It doesn't matter that I'm talking about our survival. The flirtatious undertone is still strong. This isn't flirting, though. This is telling her goodbye.

And to get inside her mind, to get inside without her fighting back, to make it feel like I was doing this all for her and not just **stealing** months of some innocent human's **life**, I distract her.

I kiss her.

* * *

><p>Under her lips, every sensation falls away. The light behind her eyelids change, she becomes off balance. The sensation of soft lips under hers dissappears. She opens her eyes and sees nothing but endless grass, swaying in the soft breeze.<p>

No matter what happened just over a week ago, no matter how Cuba - how loosing Erik and Raven - harden his heart Charles is still deeply compassionate. He thinks that Moria's lost and broken look as she stands up from the kiss should break his heart. Should, because his heart doesn't break. He doesn't think that's from a lack of compassion, however. He just thinks that you can't break something already so broken.

Moria squints and goes through a checklist trained into her by the CIA. What's her name, where was she born, how old is she. Then the more relevant information. Where is she, why is she there and who else should be present? The first questions she answers easily. The last? The last questions are just filled with a mantra of 'Charles' over and over. She should be with Charles, she's here because of Charles, she is whereever Charles is.

He concentrates, one hand in a familiar gesture against his temple, and makes sure that she keeps looking right through him. She doesn't see the short Manor walls, she doesn't see his childhood house, she doesn't see him even though he's just a step away from her. If she took a particularly long stride, she'd trip over him (and the feet of his silly wheelchair). But of course he won't let her walk forwards. It's not safe for her or for any of the mutants still in his charge for her to be here. So he tapped a corner of her mind and gave her a flash of an idea of what to do. To turn around and start walking.

And, of course, she did. After all, she was only human.

* * *

><p>Moria McTaggart returned to the CIA, trying to scrape her already dismal reputation back together and never being sure if she really had kissed the telepathic mutant.<p>

Charles Xavier returned to caring for his mutants, half his mind always on the other renegade mutants he knew were out there, and doing the only selfish act he indulged in and mourning over loosing **his** Raven and **his** Erik.

And sparing very few thoughts, for the human he sent away.

* * *

><p>Rewatching also inspired two more oneshot idea. Or, a oneshot which is currently unwritten and a drabble.<p>

Reviews would be groovy :)


End file.
